


Checkmate

by annejumps



Series: Let's Play [4]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Bottom Erik, Dom Charles, Erik Has Feelings, Impact Play, M/M, Sub Erik, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annejumps/pseuds/annejumps
Summary: Are Erik and Charles finally ready for each other?





	Checkmate

Erik thought about asking Emma what he should do, but dismissed the idea after about three seconds of consideration. Emma would laugh at him and tell him only he knew what he should do, and that he’d eventually arrive at a decision. Plus, she knew him too well to think he wanted someone to decide for him. She’d always called him the stubbornest sub she’d ever met.

Erik knew what his heart was tugging him toward, but the problem was that that particular pathway was, well, frightening, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

When would he be ready?

He didn’t know.

What if he never was?

After three days he was tired of thinking about it. So what if he’d never be ready for Charles. What did “ready” even mean?

What was Erik waiting for, exactly? He wanted this. Whatever “this” was. And he was starting to really miss Charles, which, while exasperating, was difficult to ignore.

Still, he waited two more days. Something about that seemed important to preserving his dignity. He had a reputation, after all. Besides, it would be the weekend. 

He texted Charles that evening, late. 

_Ready_.

Then he went to bed. And waited.

Erik got a reply from Charles just before midnight. 

He had been about to fall asleep, resigned to not getting a reply tonight if at all, but his phone lighting up had him grabbing for it, and what Charles actually texted him made him sit bolt upright.

 _I’m coming over_.

Erik sat blinking in the dark, wincing at the bright screen, heart hammering. Another text soon followed the first reply.

 _I want you like you were before: naked, facedown, hands tied behind your back with a belt, on a pillow. Unlock the door for me when I get there_.

Erik found himself rushing to comply: stripping off his pajama bottoms, moving a pillow to the middle of the bed, lifting a belt into the air from his dresser. He was sure he’d have to wait for Charles like this for many minutes until his arrival, but he was fine with that. Wanted that, actually.

He lay like that, cock hard between his abdomen and the pillow, wrists bound securely with the belt, waiting. He was alert, however, definitely awake now, and eager.

He eventually felt Charles’ watch approaching the door, and quickly unlocked it, heart pounding. Taking deep breaths, trying to keep still, he felt said watch moving down the hallway, after he’d relocked the door behind Charles.

Charles turned on the dim light at the dresser, rather than the harsher overheard ceiling fan light. “Erik,” he heard him breathe from the doorway of his bedroom, and evidently he stood there looking at him for a while. Erik knew Charles was able to see how hard he was breathing, yet how still he was keeping his body. He knew he must make quite the picture like this. “So good, so perfect,” Charles murmured finally. 

Erik swallowed, and closed his eyes tightly. This was going to undo him. _Charles_ was going to undo him, and now that the moment was here he found he didn’t mind at all.

“Are you ready for this, then?” Charles asked, voice still low.

Erik moved only to turn his head slightly, so he could speak clearly. “Yes, Charles.”

He heard Charles’ long exhalation at that. “Right,” Charles said. “I want you to keep very still for me, Erik. Just like that.”

It was easier for Erik, right now, to keep his eyes closed. He guessed what Charles would do next, but the paddle was deliberately chosen at the time Erik had purchased it to not have any metal on it, so Erik wouldn’t be able to sense when it was coming.

Erik tried to steady his breathing. He worried his lip in his teeth, trying to channel his nervous energy through that little action, although in a way perhaps that was cheating. Well, technically he didn’t really need to keep still until after Charles made contact with the paddle, and the idea was that he not escape the pain.

It was so difficult not to wriggle, to shake his ass and get Charles to _move_. If things weren’t so tense between them, he would have—he wasn’t above a little bit of deliberate acting out in search of punishment, depending on his rapport with the punisher in question. 

Keeping still, he started to wonder if Charles was faltering again, if he was going to set the paddle down and tell Erik this wasn’t going to work after all, and walk out the door forever. Wouldn’t that be just typical, Erik sticking his neck out in a way he never dared to do only to have things end like—

The paddle smacked him with a solid _thwack_ , squarely where it was supposed to be but with the right amount of force this time, shifting his hips forward just slightly and causing his cock to press into the pillow. He gasped, stopping the involuntary movement, and tried to recover from the surprise, shifting his shoulders and arching his back slightly—the paddle was broad and weighty enough to carry quite a sting.

“Erik,” Charles said, stern, “keep still for me.” The hesitation was gone this time.

But it was, Erik thought later, the “for me” that did it. 

He took a deep breath, set his shoulders as they were before, and did his best to arrange his hips like they’d been prior to the smack. His fingers were wrapped around his opposing wrists, the way he liked to be bound, and he tightened his hold infinitesimally. 

Charles waited, and waited. Erik still kept his eyes closed—it might be nice for Charles to blindfold him sometime, there were times he liked that being taken from him, but right now he liked having that measure of control.

Just as he’d started to almost relax, but before the sting had faded, Charles hit him again. His timing was perfect—Erik wondered if he’d read his mind at all or just had that instinct, and while either was fine, he wanted the latter. Erik sucked in air in a gasp, tensing his body to keep still and absorb the blow. He panted as the sting’s immediacy faded, until his lungs were emptied. 

Then another stinging blow, again perfectly timed. Erik could feel his chest heaving, knew that was the only movement he betrayed, as desperately as he wanted to grind his hips into the pillow. He wasn’t allowed to, so he fought not to, and won.

As the hurt was just starting to fade, another smack, this one harder than the others, drawing a choked cry from Erik’s throat before he could stop it. The rush right after this one had him shaking slightly. 

One more, Erik thought, one more; he was sure his skin was reddened now. Five was a perfectly respectable number of solid paddle blows, especially if they were all on the same area, and this wasn’t an endurance contest. Breathing hard, Erik pondered opening his eyes, then decided against it. Something about having his eyes closed let him feel shielded, naked as he was.

Adjusting the way his fingers were wrapped around his wrists, and then letting that grip loosen ever so slightly, Erik felt his back bow, his head dipping forward just a bit. It was a subtle enough movement, as was the way he let his knees slide further apart. He thought he heard a catch in Charles’ breath. Either Charles liked that little display of submission or Erik had moved when he wasn’t supposed to; whichever it was, Erik was going to get a good smack, so it was all the same, really. Regardless, it wasn’t as though he were trying to avoid the smack.

The blow, when it came, was harder than the last one, and knocked the breath out of Erik, who went still all over and then couldn’t help a groan low in his throat as he suppressed a shudder. He desperately wanted to rut against the pillow, he was quite sure he could come that way, but if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop. He realized he had no idea whether Charles would get him off, or let him get off, or anything else. Erik took deep breaths, waiting.

“That’s enough, I think,” Charles said, sounding breathless. Erik, eyes still closed, felt Charles’ weight on the bed, and then his fingertips tracing over the heated skin of his ass. The light touches gave him goosebumps and renewed little flares of pain, and his lashes fluttered; finally, he opened his eyes and craned his neck to look over his shoulder at Charles, who paused in the touches and met his gaze. They looked at each other, silent, breathing hard, in a moment that seemed to stretch on. 

Suddenly, in a rapid yet clumsy sequence of movements, Charles hastily got the belt from around his wrists and threw it aside, his hands going to Erik’s flanks and turning him over, making him gasp as his sore skin met the sheets, but the gasps were caught by Charles’ mouth as he bent to kiss him, Erik’s leaking cock rubbing against Charles’ clothed torso. He wanted to grind up against Charles, to be ground down into the bed by him, making his sore skin tingle and burn, and with that aim in mind he hooked a leg around Charles’ and arched up against him, rolling his hips, fingers mindlessly grabbing at Charles’ shirt. 

“Erik—” Charles started on a whispered moan, apparently wanting to say something further but reluctant to stop kissing him, if the clinging, biting little kisses were anything to go by. Thinking Charles was going to tell him to stop moving, Erik groaned in answer, slowing his movements and loosening his grip on Charles’ shirt. 

It seemed at that moment Charles remembered he was a telepath, because he ground down on Erik and stole his breath in a deep kiss before sending him a mental image that poleaxed him: Erik on his back just like this, but with his limbs wrapped around a naked Charles as Charles fucked him. Erik usually preferred facing away when he was fucked, allowing himself some distance from the immediacy of the proceedings, but the thought of not kissing Charles was unbearable.

Erik moaned his approval, tugging at Charles’ zipper with his power and simultaneously pulling the metal handle of the drawer containing his stainless steel bottle of lube. With all speed, Charles got himself out of his clothing, not moving any further away than he had to. Although Erik liked the thought of Charles fucking him clothed, the fabric rubbing against Erik’s bare skin, on a very deep level he understood the appeal of, and the need for, skin-to-skin contact. Likewise, although he enjoyed being bound and fucked since he sometimes liked his movements restricted, he was glad Charles had decided to remove the belt and keep his hands unencumbered. 

Naked, pale, firm, and beautiful, Charles slicked up his cock with the proffered lube, then with his slick fingers probed Erik’s hole. Erik also didn’t like a lot of prep—he preferred hard and fast, with just enough sting—and being fussed over could border on teasing and could cause him to lose patience, but otherwise he’d be depriving himself of the feeling of Charles’ fingers working him open for the first time. Arching his back, he groaned again, thighs spread over Charles’. Trying to keep his sore skin from rubbing against the bed, or Charles’ legs, just yet, he raised his hips as much as he could. 

“Now,” Charles gasped, and Erik nodded assent; out went Charles’ fingers, in went his cock, a slow slide and burn as Erik shifted, legs wrapping around him. Arms around him too, pulling him close. The friction against his tender skin, from the sheets and from Charles’ hips, drew a groan from him, as did the stretch of his body adjusting to Charles, who though average in length was delightfully thick enough.

Erik expected to be immediately kissed again, and was surprised to realize Charles was watching his face as he sank in completely; he considered looking away, closing his eyes, but couldn’t. Swallowing hard, he held his gaze, but it threatened to overwhelm him soon. Thankfully, Charles finally drew out almost entirely, and then started moving, and that gave Erik a good reason to let his eyes close, although his mouth dropped open slightly.

Charles went slowly at first, Erik shifting under him and wordlessly trying to encourage him to go faster: he squeezed him with his legs, rocked up against him, ran his hands mindlessly over his shoulders. He finally opened his eyes, to find Charles looking at him with his lip pulled between his teeth, his furrowed expression almost one of pain—and not physical pain. Without thinking twice, Erik gave in to the nagging urge that had been on his mind since Charles turned him over, taking Charles’ face in his hands and pulling him down to kiss him, a ravenous kiss. 

Then it was like Erik had flipped a switch, and Charles started to go faster, making Erik gasp and pant in catching up with him, urging him on, conscious now of sweat making them slippery. His skin was still tender, and he relished every smack of Charles’ hips against him, every time he was pressed into the sheets. Erik considered running his fingers through Charles’ hair, over his shoulders, but for whatever reason, right now he wanted to hold Charles’ face in his hands, and feel them fall apart. 

Charles’ kiss was even dirtier than his fucking, yet his fucking was so sublime that as he started to lose control, moving faster as he panted into Erik’s mouth, the feeling was much less galloping clumsily toward an inevitable climax than it was a delicious unraveling. Erik eventually got restless enough to slide one hand down to clutch at Charles’ shoulder while the other pulled at his hair; Charles shifted his weight more to one arm to spread a hand out over Erik’s hip, squeezing him there and drawing a gasp. 

Then he felt the uncanny sense of Charles’ mind nudging at his.

He drew back to take a breath, blinking up at Charles in surprise. 

“Erik—” Charles started, by way of explanation, consternation creasing his brow, gearing up for apology even as he was fucking Erik. 

Erik’s mouth went dry. “Charles, yes, please,” he got out. “Anything—Whatever you want.”

Charles groaned, a heartfelt sound low in his throat, and as Charles kissed him again Erik felt Charles’ mind sink into his.

It was like nothing he could have imagined. Emma had mentally nudged and smacked him, but her mind was very hard-edged, the boundaries clear, very much her own, and she never lingered or was gentle or anything along those lines, at all. Now, as tightly as Erik was wrapping his legs and arms around Charles, Charles was seeping into his mind, tendrils of his thoughts caressing Erik’s. 

Erik realized he was _feeling_ Charles’ emotions, surely the most intimate thing that had ever happened to him: no amount of whipping, painplay, edging, bondage, or anything else could come close to this, was even in the same galaxy. 

It was terrifying and Erik couldn’t get enough of it.

Charles was making soft sounds now as he kissed him, helpless quick losing control sounds as the kisses got messier and they started breathing harder, and Erik clutched at him, greedy, wanting to feel him come, mind and body. He wanted it now, yet he wanted this to never end. He didn’t even care if Charles wouldn’t let him come tonight, if he could stop him with his mind—although the thought made him moan, the idea that Charles had that power and could wield it with little effort, and Erik was sure he could. Yet he knew Charles wouldn’t stop him, that this right now wasn’t really about a scene, at least not the way Erik had always conceptualized them. 

The hand on Erik’s hip moved to wrap around his cock, and Erik sucked in a breath, not expecting that; a few squeezing strokes of Charles’ hand and he was coming, and Charles was too. Pleasure flooded from his mind; knowing that, like his feelings, Erik could feel Charles’ orgasm filled him with awe, even as he was swept away, overwhelmed by his own peak for what seemed like an endless moment. 

Charles broke the kiss to collapse onto Erik as he drew out, and Erik adjusted to wrap around him, tight, unwilling to let him go. Charles’ arms went around him as best he could manage, and he pressed his face into Erik’s neck. Erik felt brushes of what had to be Charles’ tear-wet lashes on his skin and wasn’t entirely sure the wetness on his own face was all sweat.

Their breathing slowed, but neither of them moved. 

“No one’s let me do that to them before,” Charles murmured, and he obviously wasn’t talking about the fucking. He pressed a kiss to Erik’s jaw. “Thank you, darling,” he added in a whisper against Erik’s skin. 

Completely tongue-tied, unused to being called “darling” and too beside himself to know what to say in response, Erik just stroked a hand over Charles’ back and shoulder, until he realized Charles was shaking a little. He drew back a bit, prompting Charles to draw back slightly and look at him, face flushed and eyes a little wet. “Charles, are you all right?” Erik asked.

“I… I’m not sure. That was a lot.” Charles huffed out a short chuckle. He ran a hand through his hair, a bit self-conscious, and something about that made Erik want to grab that hand and kiss his palm, but he refrained. 

“It was. Take whatever time you need,” Erik told him, drawing him back down and kissing his sweaty temple. 

Not quite top drop, he thought to himself. It was more than just that, if it even really was that. Charles was right, that had been a lot. 

Charles settled against him once more. They were, at this point, rather sticky and normally Erik would have gotten up to shower right about now if not sooner, but evidently neither of them wanted to move. 

He could sense Charles drifting off to sleep, both from the way his breathing slowed and how still he was to the contented slumbering feeling seeping from his mind. It made Erik want to doze—he was certainly exhausted enough—but his mind was still keyed up. 

What actually had constituted their scene, such as it was, went beautifully, but afterward, not just with Charles fucking him but with going into his mind, had gone straight to the core of what terrified Erik most about Charles. And yet here he was, perfectly fine—wonderful in fact, thrumming all through his body with contentment. Oh, he was still afraid—Charles almost literally held Erik’s heart in his hand—but there was nothing else he’d have rather done tonight. 

Charles murmured, perhaps bothered by Erik’s thoughts being so loud, and although he was getting heavy Erik still didn’t want him to move, opting instead to let himself fall asleep.

He woke to Charles nuzzling his neck. “Was that good?” Charles asked, voice rough with sleep. “All of that. Was that what you wanted.”

“Yes, Charles,” Erik said, and needing to move after being in one position for so long, he rolled onto his side, Charles adjusting to wrap around him from the back. Erik groaned in mock annoyance, pulling Charles’ arm more tightly around him.

“Good. I’m glad,” Charles said simply. He added, with a sigh, “You were so… perfect. I wanted to be the best I could for you.”

“You were lovely,” Erik said, raising Charles’ hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. “But I wouldn’t say I’m perfect.”

Charles laughed. “You are perfect, and you know it.”

Erik couldn’t help preening. “Well. I do get close.” Charles laughed again, nuzzling the back of Erik’s neck and giving him goosebumps. “You know,” Erik added, “we really ought to shower. I surprised even myself by not really caring that my dried come is all over your hand, but I do have my limits.”

Charles could barely manage to stop kissing him in the shower, either, as he took over soaping him up and washing him, a level of care that Erik rarely—if ever—allowed but which seemed only natural here. He was thorough, so thorough that Erik had to rest his hands against the slippery tile wall, knees weak. Charles then got in front of him, between him and the wall, and kissed him again, and by the time the water was starting to run cold they’d wanked each other off and then rinsed. 

Charles took over drying him off as well, and Erik marveled at the way nothing he was going about doing felt submissive, simply because it was Charles. A dom he’d known years ago when he was much younger, Sebastian, liked to treat Erik sometimes as more or less a body servant, and if he’d liked Sebastian much it might have been satisfying, but really it felt like a punishment full stop, which perhaps was the point (Sebastian was not the most ethical or non-manipulative of doms; Erik liked pain, but he wasn’t really a fan of outright sadism) and was why Erik hadn’t done it often. Now, Charles was doing these things for him as a demonstration of his feelings toward Erik, treating him well, like a prized possession, if one wanted to look at it that way.

Erik was starting to want to put things back in balance, however, as well as feeling the need to take a breath, and asked Charles if he would like Erik to make him breakfast. Charles beamed and said yes. 

“I don’t think you make breakfast for many people,” Charles guessed from where he sat, across the breakfast bar, as Erik cooked. Technically, Erik didn’t need to stand at the stove, but he opted to do so anyway.

“I rarely have anyone here long enough for that,” Erik admitted. 

Charles tilted his head and looked closely at him, curious. Under the scrutiny, Erik focused his attention on the omelettes. It wasn’t that he minded Charles watching him—he didn’t at all—but Charles was clearly drawing some conclusions. “So are your… scenes… one-time things, usually?”

“Often the case,” Erik acknowledged. That wasn’t anything to be ashamed of.

“Doesn’t it make it difficult, not knowing someone or having a rapport with them?”

“You can still have a rapport with someone you don’t know well,” Erik said. “There are a few things I want from them, they want a few things from me, it’s done. Transactional, but nothing wrong with it.”

“No, of course not.” 

“Are you not very familiar with these things?” Erik asked, although he thought he knew the answer. He plated the omelettes.

“Not really,” Charles admitted. He took his plate with a smile of thanks. “My friend Emma and I got to talking once and she mentioned this particular club—”

“You know Emma,” Erik said. Of course they knew each other—

“Telepaths,” Charles said, nodding. “She told me I might find it interesting, so I went. She didn’t say you were coming with her, if you’re wondering,” he added. “You were a total surprise to me.”

Erik remembered Charles saying he’d wanted—this—with him the moment he’d seen him. “Did you read my mind? When you saw me?”

“I _saw_ you, first, after you came in with her,” Charles told him, pausing in eating, “and then I skimmed your mind. Nothing intrusive.”

“And what did you find?”

“Someone who wanted to feel,” Charles said simply. They looked at each other in silence for a while.

“Do you like to make others… feel?” Erik asked.

“I do,” Charles said. “And myself. You see, so much of my power is literally in my head. It can be difficult for a telepath to know the boundaries between their mind, the minds of others, and physical reality. It can be… grounding, when there’s some sort of acting out. It’s not always easy to process, especially when you find yourself wanting to hit someone, however.” He sighed, rueful. “As you saw.”

“It can be a good outlet,” Erik told him. “If the person you’re hitting wants you to hit them, it all works out.”

“Do you like to be hit or hurt because you feel you’re bad, that you deserve punishment?” Charles asked. “I don’t get that impression, so I’m curious.”

“I suppose it’s not really that,” Erik mused, “so much as it is a desire to feel. Like I told you, I like the hurt, I like the rush and the relief when it goes away.”

Charles laughed. “So I like to make others feel and you like to feel.” 

“Convenient,” Erik said, dry, but he smiled. 

“Feeling isn’t always about hurting, of course,” Charles said. “Watching you react to me hitting you with the paddle, and watching your eyes close when I’m washing your hair—it’s all feeling, it’s all me being attuned to you and you soaking it up.”

Erik had nothing to say to refute that; it was true. Still standing on the other side of the breakfast bar, at the stove, he started to eat his omelette.

Charles continued. “You’re a very disciplined person, very controlled, although passionate,” he observed. “You’re so disciplined that your desire to submit is really an extension of that, while at the same time a contradiction of it. You say you want to submit, but you’re protecting yourself.”

Erik smothered a laugh; now Charles was psychoanalyzing _him_. “What do you mean? Are you saying I don’t truly submit?”

“I don’t know that you do,” Charles answered. “At least, not until you met me.”

“Oh? That’s a bold statement for someone who’s never done this before.”

“You control it all. You know when to turn away, you call all the shots.”

“I have to, I don’t trust anyone as much as I trust myself. Besides, submission isn’t about completely giving up control.”

“You said you didn’t want a ‘service top,’ that’s a definition easy enough to surmise—yet it seems that’s all you’ve had.”

“Are you making a pitch here? Surely you know I don’t let just anyone hit me, fuck me, wash me, and eat my food, at least not the same person in the same 12-hour period.” Erik kept his tone dry, but he was quite serious and that was about all he was ready to admit, having not totally recovered from his confession of “feelings,” even vague ones, at the coffee shop.

“I’m just laying it all out.” Charles’ smile was pleasingly smug.

“Well, it’s nice to get a true representative sample of your eloquence, when you’re not drunkenly hitting on me.” Or struggling to explain why you’re ashamed of wanting to _hit_ me, he thought.

“Oh, there’s more where that came from. I could read my thesis to you. It was on human genetic mutation, I’m sure you’d find it interesting.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” Erik said, because he knew he’d absolutely be willing to spend all day in his living room _or_ bedroom listening to Charles talk about mutation, preferably as a bedtime story, and he was starting to feel the need for some more time to himself, to process what was happening. But he was still bothered by something. “You think I’m too attached to my self-discipline?”

“Let’s just say I hope to be worthy of your giving it up. Occasionally.”

“You’d like me to trust you.”

“I’d like you to let me make you feel things without wanting to turn away.”

Erik was silent for a while as they ate. Finally he said, “I told you the other day to take all the time you needed; can I expect you to do the courtesy of extending that offer to me?”

“Of course, Erik.”

“I don’t even know what you do for a living. What do you do?”

Charles’ eyes twinkled. “Would you believe I’m a professor of genetics?”

Erik stared. “You aren’t.” But of course he was. Charles just smiled and drank his coffee. “You can’t be,” Erik insisted anyway. “You look twenty-five at most.”

“I’m thirty, actually.”

“Still.” Thirty seemed late for the sort of self-discovery Charles was now starting to go though, but, well, everyone was different. If he’d had a rough family life, or whatever it was he’d hinted at, then it might just have taken him some time. And, well, if Erik really thought about it, some of his own experiences were perhaps at too young an age. 

“I’ll be out of your hair soon,” Charles promised, nearly done with his omelette. “I’d stay here all day if it were up to me, and tonight, but I can sense you’re starting to get a bit agitated and want time to yourself.”

Erik laughed, rueful. “It’s just been a lot.”

“Of course,” Charles said. “But Erik, there’s just one thing I need to be clear on: if we do this, I don’t want an arrangement where I’m a dom and you’re a sub and you have me come over occasionally to demonstrate that and that’s the end of it. I want an actual relationship. And whatever that would entail.”

Whatever that would entail. Erik imagined texting Charles throughout the day, getting amusing replies from him. Sleeping in with him on cold or rainy mornings, warm under piled-up quilts. Watching TV, his head on Charles’ lap while Charles’ blunt nails idly scraped his scalp. Arm in arm with him walking down the sidewalk on a chilly night on the way to or from some high-end restaurant. Kissing in a dark cab. Going to the grocery store with him and arguing about what type of pasta went with which sauce. Showing off for Charles with a little display of his powers. Charles whispering endearments directly into his mind. 

It was all too easy to come up with a litany of mundane little things he could see himself doing and enjoying with Charles, and not a one of them had anything to do with whips or chains.

Yet there were those things too. Whips and chains, yes; handcuffs, ropes, cockrings, metal dildos. All that he could easily imagine introducing to Charles, and watching him master….

Charles was apparently patiently waiting for him to say something. Erik looked up from the stovetop on which his gaze had fallen. “I did say I wanted to see where ‘this’ went,” he said. “I still do, and your terms are acceptable.”

Charles laughed at that, but he was beaming. “How romantic,” he teased.

Erik shrugged, smiling back. They looked at each other a while, smiles lingering.

Sitting back a bit, Charles pushed away his empty plate, and cleared his throat. “Well. That was delicious, thank you, Erik. I’ll be going shortly—” He made to start getting up.

Erik realized he no longer wanted to be alone that badly, even if he would have a lot to process later. He took a deep breath. “Charles.” 

Going still, brows raised, Charles waited.

“I do need time alone to think.” Although Erik was tempted to look away, to escape the directness of Charles’ gaze, he didn’t. “But I don’t want you to leave just yet.”

“Oh? Did you have something in mind?”

“Yes. I think we should….” Erik chuckled quietly, running a hand through his hair, hardly able to believe he was about to suggest this. “I think we should go for a walk. It’s a gorgeous day.”

Charles’ delighted smile then, fondness brimming in his eyes and a knowing quirk to his lips, was an expression Erik knew without a doubt he wanted to see again. 

Many times, if at all possible.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <333


End file.
